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Fencer Intel
medium 5.7

CVE-2026-85036 json

Bluetooth Classic AVDTP session reuse re-initializes a queued work item, corrupting the system work queue

published 8d ago modified 2d ago also EUVD-2026-116740 , GHSA-ffxg-752w-mv9x

Unreviewed: the maintainers' own advisory

Published by the maintainers on their GitHub repository zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr. GitHub has not reviewed it into the GitHub Advisory Database, so the affected packages and versions are the maintainers' word. Read the full advisory on GitHub.

cvss
5.7
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 11%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The Bluetooth Classic AVDTP layer defers releasing a session's stream endpoints: bt_avdtp_l2cap_disconnected() in subsys/bluetooth/host/classic/avdtp.c ends with k_work_submit(&session->_release_work), placing the embedded struct k_work on the system work queue's pending list. When the same struct bt_avdtp object is immediately reused for a new signalling connection, the session memory is re-initialized — a2dp_get_connection() in subsys/bluetooth/host/classic/a2dp.c memset()s the whole struct bt_a2dp, and bt_avdtp_l2cap_accept() / bt_avdtp_connect() call k_work_init() on session->_release_work — while that work item is still linked into k_sys_work_q.pending. Zeroing a linked sys_snode_t truncates the list while its tail pointer keeps pointing past the truncation.

The reuse window is deterministic rather than a race. All host RX processing runs on the Bluetooth RX work queue at a cooperative priority (CONFIG_BT_RX_PRIO), while _release_work is submitted to the lower-priority system work queue, so the release handler cannot run until the RX thread blocks. Because l2cap_br_recv() processes every signalling command contained in a single L2CAP signalling PDU back-to-back, a peer can send one PDU holding an L2CAP Disconnection Request for the AVDTP signalling channel followed by a Connection Request for PSM 0x0019; the second command reaches the session-reuse path with the release work provably still queued. The peer must already hold an encrypted AVDTP signalling channel, i.e. be a paired/bonded BR/EDR device.

The result is corruption of the global system work queue's pending list: either the queue silently stops executing any work at all (subsequent submissions are appended to a chain the head can no longer reach, and the orphaned items keep their K_WORK_QUEUED flag forever) or, in the tail variant, the list acquires a self-referencing node that the queue thread spins on. The written values are pointers to other struct k_work objects and are not attacker-controlled, so the impact is a device-wide, reboot-required denial of service rather than a controllable write primitive. Only builds with CONFIG_BT_CLASSIC and CONFIG_BT_A2DP are affected.

The fix is a two-commit unit, and neither commit closes the path on its own. ec822ceed83b adds a pending-release check to bt_avdtp_connect() and bt_avdtp_l2cap_accept(), but the A2DP upper layer's a2dp_get_connection() memset()s the session — including the queued work item's list node and flags — before those checks run, so k_work_busy_get() would observe an already-cleared state. 2bd5ea88c69b closes that by making a2dp_get_connection() itself skip the reuse and return NULL while the release work is still pending, which both callers already handle by rejecting the connection attempt. Apply both commits together; either one alone leaves the device vulnerable.

Patch / fix

  • zephyrproject zephyr 4.3.2, 4.5.0

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CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2d ago

Exploit prediction

0.21% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 11% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • zephyrproject zephyr

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-666 Operation on Resource in Wrong Phase of Lifetime

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

The maintainers of zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr published their own advisory on GitHub. Reviewed sources take precedence over it.